The Road Ahead

by Adrian Bonenberger

  He turned, removed his wool hat. “Hey there,” he said, smiling. “How you holding up?”

  “One day at a time.”

  “Seven of them in a week.”

  She smiled, walked inside. “Come in. Take off your boots.”

  He stubbed out his cigarette, walked inside, and removed his boots. “I didn’t see you this week. I’m headed down to Payson, thought I’d drop by and see how you’ve been.”

  “I’m headed down there today too,” she said. “I’ve got errands. You want some coffee?”

  “Love some.”

  Dan sat on the couch. She made coffee on the stove, and then poured two cups. She handed Dan his coffee. He thanked her, and asked, “So, how are things around the homestead?”

  “Fine, I guess,” she said from behind her cup. “The animals eat every day, and the generator always needs fuel. Power’s finally out for good. What about you?”

  “Not too bad, really. The FMO has got us doing some hiring right now. We’re pulling resumes and cold-calling folks. Just trying to get a feel for which ones we’d like to hire. You need any help with that generator?”

  She blew into her cup, took a sip, and then said, “I got it so far, I think. But I’ll let you know if I do.”

  Dan looked into his coffee, said, “Well, you know I’m always around if you need anything.”

  When Michael was alive, he spoke highly of Dan, and after Michael died, Joyce soon discovered why. In the chaotic days after Michael’s death, Dan set up a collection in Young, raising enough to cover all the funeral expenses. After the funeral, Dan kept her updated on the progress of the Forest Service’s investigation into Michael’s death. He even helped her with Michael’s will.

  Dan’s cup scraped across the table and broke up her thoughts. She looked toward him. “One time,” he said to her leaning back into the couch, “the crew was digging line deep into the woods of the Sawtooth, for like thirteen hours, just trying to get ahead of the fire. Bone tired, dead on our feet. And the fire kept jumping the line, so we had to work faster. People were cursing and complaining, and it felt like the fire was going to get away from us. And in the middle of all of it, Michael stood up, and called out to the crew. Everyone stopped to listen, and he yelled, ‘Next goddamn person who bitches about digging line with my hotshot crew will buy every single one of those engine assholes a beer for the rest of this season.’ No one said a word after that, and we got ahead of it a few hours later.”

  They both laughed.

  “I saw a different part of him.”

  “You mind if I grab a smoke outside?” Dan asked.

  “No, go ahead.”

  While Dan smoked, Joyce thought back to the afternoons before fire season. If she heard the neighbor’s dog bark, she knew Michael was close by. She’d walk outside to look for him. Sometimes crows flew overhead. Then she’d walk through the tall grass, and as it brushed against her pants, her boots sank deep into the mud. She’d walk toward the tree line. He’d straddle the threshold: a foot in the grass, the other in the forest. She’d watch him pick up arrowheads, a hawk’s feather, a deer skull, and little bits of wood. He’d gaze intently at them, and then toss them in his pack. Lost in his thoughts, he’d finally look up. His face was tan and weathered, but he didn’t look old. His shoulders were broad and his forearms were thick and ropey, like those of a man who made a living on his feet, with his hands. She’d wave and walk toward the forest. A late-afternoon sun sank slowly behind the Rim, and their shadows would grow longer in the grass. They’d walk through the woods, where he would identify the trees, and talk about how the Natives used fire to shape the land.

  Dan’s truck door slammed. He came back into the cabin holding a thick folder. He took off his boots and returned to the couch. Without looking at Joyce, he placed the folder on the table. “This is Michael’s file,” Dan said, leaning forward, his hand sliding the folder closer to Joyce. “It’s the results of the Idaho investigation.”

  Joyce stared at the file, its red color suddenly intense. She looked up at Dan, her face hot, and nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll read it later.”

  They walked to the porch. Dan put on his wool cap and walked to his truck.

  “Hey Dan,” Joyce called out to him, and turned to her. “It was like the roof was torn off.”

  “You know where to find me if you need any help,” he said.

  Joyce saw what looked like relief spread across Dan’s face. His shoulders relaxed slightly, less tense, and the lines in his face softened.

  “I do,” she said.

  Inside, Joyce stared at the folder, and listened to Dan’s truck idle. The clutch and shifter made a grinding noise when he changed gears. It whined as he reversed down the driveway.

  Her throat was dry and tight, and her thoughts were wide and unshaped. She filled a glass with water and drank it down quickly. Her mind felt thin, like sheets of vellum. She rinsed the cups and glass and dried her wet hands on her jeans. She walked to the window and checked the animals. She sat on the couch, leaned back, and placed a pillow behind her head. She closed her eyes and soon fell into a deep afternoon sleep.

  When she woke, Joyce restacked the cordwood on the porch, pulling out logs for the cabin stove. She checked the goats’ feeding bucket, then filled their water trough from behind the wooden fence. She counted the chickens as she walked to the truck. She bound the gas cans with a bungee cord and loaded the trash into the truck bed.

  As she turned out of the driveway, enormous clouds, the color of molten tin, floated high above the Rim. She stopped the truck and watched the clouds move undisturbed, slowly, through the sky, made denser and more menacing. After a few moments, she continued again down the gravel road, and drove the sixty miles in silence.

  In Payson she dumped the trash, filled the gas cans, and bungeed them back in the truck bed. She then drove to get groceries, and inside the Safeway, Joyce grabbed a cart and pushed it toward the produce. She got ingredients for a salad, bagged the vegetables, and pulled out her list.

  Joyce rolled the cart to the cereal aisle. The bright fluorescent lighting made everything look unnatural. In the cabin, the winter sun often never touched the darkest corners, and everything appeared as a light shade of blue. Suddenly, a deep loneliness tugged at her, and her hands shook. She pulled out her phone, her hands still shaking, and dialed Dan’s number. It went to voicemail.

  “Dan, it’s Joyce,” she said into the phone. “I was just in the grocery store, and I thought, well, I thought. Shit.” She paused to gather her thoughts. “Sorry. So, I thought maybe you could come over and have dinner at the cabin. It might be nice to have some company. Give me a call back. I’ll be in Payson for a little bit longer, but then I’m headed back up to Young. Okay.” She placed the phone in her purse, and stared down the massive aisle of cereal. Her hands were now still. She glanced at her list, and pushed the cart to the next aisle.

  Outside the weather had turned, dark clouds hung low over the parking lot. She loaded the groceries and started her truck. She idled and leaned her head against the steering wheel. The cold was refreshing.

  The sky opened and large, heavy raindrops fell to earth. She looked up to see an older woman running frantically across the parking lot, a newspaper held over her head to shield against the rain. The woman’s clothes were soaked and heavy, sagging off her frail body. A limp paper bag of groceries was cradled awkwardly against her side. The woman fumbled with her keys, dropped the paper and keys, and retrieved the keys from the wet blacktop. She clumsily loaded the wet bag of groceries into her vehicle and then drove away with a fogged windshield. Joyce stared at the abandoned newspaper, as it became nothing but grey mush.

  She watched the rain pool on the street, and she wanted so much to get out of the truck and touch it. She wanted to cup it in her hands. She thought of the times, as a child, when she walked down to a stream, where she’d place her hands just below the water’s surface, watching as her hands and the moving water so
mehow reshaped themselves to meet one another. A ring in the water was sent out that widened, making its way through Oregon’s rivers, and out to the sea. The rings, she imagined as a child, would eventually return right back to the same spot where her small, delicate hands had first disrupted the water’s surface, back to its beginning. The rings were tiny disruptions that circled the earth’s waters, returning once again to the same small hands that gently pushed the water.

  Joyce shut off the truck and cried. She placed both hands around the steering wheel, squeezed tightly, and rocked her body violently back and forth. She let out a scream. She breathed in deeply, held it, and then let it out gently. She closed her eyes and touched them with her palms, keeping them there until the rain stopped.

  She drove toward Young. The truck’s defrosters were broken. She wiped the windows with a rag as she drove. On the highway, the clouds parted, and she glimpsed a canyon-colored sky set back far from grey-black storm clouds. In the mountains night brought darkness. The higher she drove into the mountains, the more the rain hardened. The blacktop soon turned to dirt and gravel, and the frozen rain turned to snow. Joyce stopped the truck, shifted into four-wheel-drive, and drove on carefully. Big logging trucks, filled with the trunks of old-growth ponderosa pines were known to drive recklessly, forcing motorists into ditches, leaving them stranded through freezing nights, or worse.

  The night settled around the road. She focused on the road ahead, her vision narrowed in on the falling snow, and her hands felt for any shift in the truck’s grip on the ground. The high beams illuminated the large white flakes, making them appear bigger, and the blackened woods on both sides of the road formed a tunnel.

  In the distance, headlights appeared, becoming bigger and brighter as she drove to meet them. For a brief moment, she saw a flash and the vehicle came to a stop. She slowed, waiting for the headlights to approach her, but they remained still, so she drove on. She could see that it was a logging truck, and as she approached, the vehicle moved forward suddenly and passed her without slowing. The snow was falling harder and covering the road. Joyce rolled down her window to look out.

  She saw the blood first. She followed the trail of blood, and saw the deer. The blood was spattered in uneven lines along the snow, and the deer lay in a crumpled mess. Joyce turned on her hazard lights, grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment, put on her jacket, and got out of the truck. She looked down the road for the logging truck, but its lights and its sound were gone. She shined her light on the dying deer: a buck.

  Joyce approached the buck, and she held her light steady, listened for any sounds. She heard a faint tapping coming from the darkened woods: it was the snow falling against the bare pine branches. The buck was completely still, save its shallow breathing. Tiny bursts of yellow light flashed on the snow. The hazard lights blinked, and the outlying corners of the darkened edges of night appeared faintly yellow. The darker edges of her vision glowed but then darkened once more. She stood over the dying animal; even in the darkness, with only a small light by which to see, she saw the wild and immense power of its muscled body and the breadth of its rack.

  Joyce knelt in the snow, and placed a hand on its throat. The buck was still, but Joyce felt the life quickly fading from its body. She placed both hands on the buck now. She wanted to feel the last moments of the buck’s life, to know what death felt like in her hands. She clicked off her flashlight and the world was dark. She brushed away the snow collecting on its damp fur. She hoped the buck was not in pain, but knew death could never be completely painless. She stayed with the buck as it died. When she no longer felt life under her hands she cried.

  The snow was falling harder, and she was still far from the cabin. She had to get out of the storm. She stood, placed the flashlight in her coat, bent at the knees, grabbed two of the buck’s hooves, and dragged it away from the road. The ground was frozen. The wet snow and a gentle slope made it easier to drag. Joyce pulled the buck away from the road, then down a small embankment that led to the woods. The woods were covered with fresh snow. The buck was too heavy to pull over stumps and downed limbs, so she was forced to leave it. The snow would cover it for the night, conserving it, but soon the animals and birds and forest would reclaim it. She was breathing heavily. She tried to listen for the sounds of coyotes, but she heard only her heavy breath and the faint tapping of frozen water on the pines. She knelt to the buck a final time, placed her hands on its side, and apologized for leaving.

  She climbed to the road, her feet slipping on the slope, and then walked back to her truck. She drove home. The smell of the animal was on her hands. When she pulled into the driveway, she shut off the truck and sat silently in the cab. She watched the snow blanket the land. She would shovel it away in the morning, but tonight she would watch it fall. She imagined the snow forever falling, imagining its beauty and stillness were somehow permanent. She imagined the view through a frosted and fogging windshield of the snow falling might stay forever in her mind. The silence that she experienced might somehow be the only sounds she would ever hear again.

  Joyce opened the truck door, gathered the bags of groceries. She slammed the door shut with her hip. The snow crunched beneath her boots. She leaned against the railing, watched the snow, and thought of the red file sitting inside the cabin, waiting for her.

  Michael’s file would never tell her anything more than she already knew.

  She would never be able to lie down in the woods, pull a fire shelter over her body, and wait until a deadly blaze blanketed her, cooking her alive. As the roar of a wildfire, like a jet engine, drowned out all other sounds.

  She kicked her boots against the steps and walked inside. She hung up her jacket, set down the groceries, and took off her boots. The generator would be filled in the morning. She looked outside. The animals were nowhere to be seen, hunkered down in their pens, waiting out the storm.

  She kept the cabin dark. She placed a log in the stove and blew on the dim coals. The fire came back to life. The room was still and the sounds of the burning log echoed in the small space. The flames grew and whipped, the pitch popped. She closed the stove. The air pulled through and whistled softly. She walked to the window to once more see the snow. It looked perfect.

  The snow covered the tree line. The dark woods of winter were remade. In the woods, the ground was no longer the moist and rotting earth of autumn, nor was it the hollow and empty earth of early winter. It was something else entirely. The snow fell through the trees, hiding snags and widowmakers.

  The high-desert snow fell not down but up the Mogollon Rim, as though winter was retreating away from the cabin, away from Joyce, and back atop the mouth of the Rim. She closed her eyes, placed a hand to her own pulse, and thought of the snow burying the buck. She felt her own heart beating. She looked out onto the snow-covered land. She listened as the snow fell. She listened to the sounds of the cabin. She listened for Idaho.

  THERE’S ALWAYS ONE

  by Kayla M. Williams

  Kate closed her eyes and tried to turn off her brain, let his weight and their movement be the entirety of her world. For a minute it worked, and her mind buzzed. Then his breathing shifted, dragging her back, and a few grunts later he collapsed onto her.

  She placed a hand on his chest and kissed his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  He rolled off of her, propped himself up on an elbow, and frowned. “I’m sorry, you didn’t . . .”

  Shaking her head, Kate put a finger on his lips. “No. Don’t worry about it. I just have a lot on my mind.” Reality was settling back in, the illusion of intimacy fading. Being alone with someone suddenly felt far worse than being alone by herself. She rose and settled a simple black dress over her slim figure, then ducked into the bathroom, glancing in a mirror while pulling her long, straight brown hair into a ponytail and wiping a bit of smudged mascara from below her green eyes.

  “Don’t you want to stay?”

  “I can’t. My dog needs to be let out.” The lie sli
pped out, easier than hurting his feelings with the truth: she couldn’t stand the thought of staying.

  He got up too, pulling on a pair of discarded jeans and walking with her toward the door. “Call me?”

  “Sure.”

  He grinned wryly. “You don’t have my number.”

  She smiled back, pulled his head down and gently kissed his cheek before walking out. “Nope.”

  The clock in her car read just after midnight. Nine on the West Coast at Joint Base Lewis-McChord—her best friend Chloe would still be up. She answered immediately.

  “Kate! How are you?”

  Without preamble: “I picked some guy up at the bar. It was so easy—just let him think he was picking me up, made eyes at him while he told me war stories.”

  “Some pogue?”

  “Must’ve been. Probably supply or something—I bet he never left the wire. You know how it is—the more they talk . . .”

  Chloe laughed. “Yeah. And? How was it?”

  “Meh. Am I a whore?”

  Her friend’s tone hardened. “No.” A long pause. “After what you’ve been through, you deserve to do whatever you need to. Anyone who judges you can fuck off. They have no idea.”

  “I wish you were here.”

  “Oh, Kate.” Chloe’s empathy was palpable in the pause that followed. “I’m not allowed to fly. Why don’t you come out here? When the baby comes I’ll be home for a few months. My mom’s taking a couple weeks, but then . . .”

  “Maybe. I have to go visit our parents . . .”

  “Call me anytime. I’m not sleeping much.”

  When she walked into her house, the cleaning lady’s handmade red, white, and blue sign, “Welcome Home Kate and Paul!” seemed accusatory. She flipped it facedown on the counter. Unable to bear sliding between the freshly laundered sheets of their bed alone, she convinced herself it would be better to miss traffic by driving at night anyway, packed quickly, and left.